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Thursday, 5 April 2012

Review: Starters by Lissa Price

Starters by Lissa Price
Published by RHCB

HER WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. . .

Starters is a unique dystopian novel in an overflooded market of dystopian novel which makes it a bit special in itself. I liked it's ideas and take on a future world and was thoroughly entertained whilst reading it.

Starters is set in a future world where a virus has wiped out all but the very young and very old who survived because they were given priority access to vaccinations. The Starters (young people) who have older family members to claim them live well whereas those without family live like second class citizens, barred for working and forced to live in terrible conditions as illegal squatters and often forced to great lengths to get the essentials they need to survive.

Callie, the main character, is in this situation. After losing her parents she has been forced to do whatever necessary to provide for and protect her little brother. One scheme that looks like the answer to all her problems in a body bank where she would donate her body for hire so an Ender could use it to relive their youth, party and generally have an awesome time. The money is fantastic and the offer seems to good to be true. Invariably as with these things it is.

Callie wakes up in her body whilst out on hire and soon realises that her temporary owner wants to do something quite sinister whilst in her body and despite Callie's best efforts to depose of the guns and weapons that she keeps finding after blacking out her owner seems to be winning and getting closer to meeting her objective of killing someone.

I won't go to much into any more detail of what happens but I will tell you that the book kept me on the very edge of my seat. The way to story twisted and turned and actually became a lot deeper than what it initially appeared was brilliant. I loved getting deeper into what was happening and finding out more about the world in which Callie lived.

The ending was one of those endings. While I loved it entirely I need the next book now!!